'41 Deluxe Fuel Tank

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: '41 Deluxe Fuel Tank

Pulling the the tank is not hard, just very time consuming. It REALLY helps to have two people! The actual tank part is easy, it is putting all the engine connections back on through the firewall that was the problem (MARK WHERE EVERYTHING COMES THROUGH!). Even pulling the engine was pretty easy with an engine hoist. While you have the boot cowl off you get a chance to really look the foot well over carefully and get back the 10# of tools and fasteners that have fallen under the floor boards. While the boot is off make SURE you fix the firewall to engine mount bolt tabs that keep the bolt heads from turning. The absolute WORST part of the job was getting the bolts back through and not being able to keep them from spinning! DON'T FORGET THE SPACER WASHERS! Your nose bowl will not clear the back of the prop without them and EVERYTHING has to come back off to get them back in! If your plane doesn't have it a lot of planes have a turnbuckle added where the cable crosses between the wheels. REALLY makes it easy to get the wheels rigged level.

Hank

[Peterroy]

Re: '41 Deluxe Fuel Tank

Tim,

I just sent you a PM.

Peter

[astjp2]

Re: '41 Deluxe Fuel Tank

Hank, I wont pull the boot cowl, I would pull the panel enough to get to the rods and then just drop the tank...tim

and when you say wheels, you mean the control yokes right? Tim

Pulling the the tank is not hard, just very time consuming. It REALLY helps to have two people! The actual tank part is easy, it is putting all the engine connections back on through the firewall that was the problem (MARK WHERE EVERYTHING COMES THROUGH!). Even pulling the engine was pretty easy with an engine hoist. While you have the boot cowl off you get a chance to really look the foot well over carefully and get back the 10# of tools and fasteners that have fallen under the floor boards. While the boot is off make SURE you fix the firewall to engine mount bolt tabs that keep the bolt heads from turning. The absolute WORST part of the job was getting the bolts back through and not being able to keep them from spinning! DON'T FORGET THE SPACER WASHERS! Your nose bowl will not clear the back of the prop without them and EVERYTHING has to come back off to get them back in! If your plane doesn't have it a lot of planes have a turnbuckle added where the cable crosses between the wheels. REALLY makes it easy to get the wheels rigged level.

Hank

[Robert Lees]

Re: '41 Deluxe Fuel Tank

When I took out my main tank, I did not remove the boot cowl...just dropped the "H" frame and all the stuff with that.

Regarding the tank rods, and to the best of my recollection (this was 20+ years ago), one of them is below the structural cross-member at the bottom of the instrument panel, and the other is above. I cut a slot in the instrument panel (later covered with the wing-tank placard) so as to be able to withdraw this rod without removing the panel.

This photo shows the rectangular hole, just left and lower than the RH control column circular hole:



This next one shows the panel almost fitted out, and you can see that the wing tank placard covers the hole:



Caveat: all the foregoing is for a BC12D 1946 model, so the geometry may be different, but I hope it helps.

Rob

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: '41 Deluxe Fuel Tank

Hank, I wont pull the boot cowl, I would pull the panel enough to get to the rods and then just drop the tank...tim

and when you say wheels, you mean the control yokes right? Tim

Correct, CONTROL wheels. You CAN take the wheels and tires off, but the difference in the planes height doesn't really help that much. It does keep it from rolling around though. ;-) One reason I pulled the Boot was you will be amazed at how much you will see you couldn't with it in place. Some of it was just a bit terrifying!

Hank

[Peterroy]

Re: '41 Deluxe Fuel Tank

Tim,

I just sent you a PM.